The SEND Crisis Looks Very Different Outside White, Middle-Class Britain

"When we casually tell parents to 'push harder', 'escalate', 'complain' or 'fight the system', we are assuming everyone has the same level of safety in doing so. They do not."

The SEND system is broken. We hear that phrase constantly now. And to be clear, it is true.

Parents are tired, they are angry. It’s no wonder then that there was such a backlash from SEND families when the Department for Education (DfE) recently brought Gemma Collins in to discuss the education system.

In a social media clip, the reality star asked: “What are we going to do to help the children?”

But she didn’t ask which children – which families, which class, which race, which region. And that one sentence summed up everything that is wrong with support for children, especially those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), in the UK today.

Families across the country are exhausted. Parents are burnt out. Schools are overwhelmed. Local authorities are struggling. Children are falling through gaps that should never have existed in the first place.

But there is something about the current national conversation around SEND that is increasingly troubling. Too often, we speak about the crisis as though everyone experiences it in the same way. When, quite simply, they do not.

The fractures in the SEND system are not felt equally. And if we refuse to name that honestly, the solutions we build will........

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